Poker Articles
Articles for beginning and advanced poker players and prop players
On Losing Streaks
Poker prop article posted October 2nd, 2006Since my last essay was on the subject of luck, specifically bad luck, I thought it might be a good idea to delve a little further into the subject and discuss the worst thing that can befall a poker player: the dreaded extended losing streak. Bad luck in reasonable doses of course is not really such a bad thing. In the normal course of events, it kind of flies around indiscriminately, like some restless bird, landing first on this guy, then that guy, usually staying just long enough to deliver a painful peck or two to the top of the head before flying off in search of another victim.
We're so used to the short-lived nature of bad luck that when we pull up a chair at the poker table, or log onto our favorite online site, we do so without fear. If you're a winning player, you take your losing sessions in stride, even welcoming then in some sense as the inevitable and necessary backdrop against which you ever more clearly emerge as the successful poker player you know yourself to be. Time, and the law of averages, are firmly on your side.
And yet we all know that at any given time there are more than a few good players stuck in the throes of long losing streaks. We all hear the horror stories: the pro who played an entire year without making a dime; the winning 20-40 player who dropped 1500 big bets in six months; the expert 50-100 player who lost so much money he was forced to drop down to 2-4 to try to rebuild his shattered bankroll. The particulars of these stories don't really matter much. The essential point is that winning poker players, despite their skills, are occasionally subject to unspeakably cruel stretches of bad luck. Poker's nothing if not a war, and you can't have wars without bloodshed, not to mention the occasional corpse.
Poker's no different than all the other things we do that contain significant, though statistically remote dangers. We drive without fear, or go about our business in a germ ridden world, or engage in any number of inherently risky behaviors, all in the implicit belief that while bad things can happen, they happen mostly to the other guy.
What we tend to forget is that to the rest of the world, we are the other guy. Drive a car long enough over enough miles, and it's a virtual certainty you're going to have some sort of accident. Live long enough, and it's another virtual certainty that you're going to come down with a nasty illness. If the germs don't get you, you can be almost certain that some other sort of malady will. Same thing with losing streaks of course. Play enough hands over a long enough period of time, and that mostly harmless bird we talked about is at some point going to land on your head and decide he likes it there.
And yet human beings are a resilient bunch. Even while acknowledging the objective truth of our various statistical predicaments, we carry on because we know that the chances of anything bad happening to us today are extremely remote. People in general, and gamblers in particular (and poker is most assuredly a form of gambling) seem hardwired to not worry too much about the future.
Which is a good thing. I speak from personal experience when I tell you just how bad things can get at the poker table. I've had losing streaks that would make grown men cry. Session after session, day after day, for weeks, then months, racking up almost nothing but losses. Losing streaks of that magnitude can be extraordinarily painful for even the strongest of players. They grind on in defiance of all logic, and fly in the face of everything we've learned to expect from what had once seemed, in an earlier, more innocent time, an orderly universe. When stuck in such a losing streak, it's not good luck you crave so much as just a break from all the unrelenting bad luck, and perhaps just a tiny bit of justice. Please dear God you find yourself praying (whether you believe in God or not) after missing your 15th consecutive draws, let me make just one little flush.
At a certain point, and this point is different for everyone, you begin to go a little crazy, feeling positively conspired against. It can't be that any one human being can be this unlucky for such a long period of time, you think to yourself. Especially if you're online, where several months worth of bricks and mortar bad luck can be concentrated into a matter of just a few weeks, you can even start to wonder if things are really on the up and up. You dismiss these thoughts as the ravings of a paranoid, and yet at the same time it's very hard to believe that such horrible luck can actually exist without the assistance of some outside agent.
Losing for long periods of time is ultimately a very lonely thing. As the days becomes weeks, you feel increasingly cut off from the rest of the human race. You too used to live in a world of rainbows, and sunshine, and at least the occasional happy ending.. You wince when you remember how much you took those things for granted. What you wouldn't give to find your way back to such a world.
Forget sympathy. Many players won't even believe your bad luck because if they're willing to accept that such a thing as losing 600 big best over a two month period is possible for you, then that means it might be possible for them. And who wants to believe that? Tell someone you've just lost that much money and chances are they're going to tell you to see a poker coach.. And if they don't say it, you can be pretty sure they're thinking it.
So what can you do? Not much, unfortunately. The standard advice is to keep reminding yourself, despite the endless series of staggering losses, that each new hand is entirely independent of all other hands. In essence you need to remember that every time the cards are dealt you're starting fresh, with the same chance of winning as everybody else. No matter how terrible your current losing streak, now matter how possessed it seems of its own dark and unstoppable momentum, there's absolutely no reason in the world not to feel hopeful that the next hand will be the start of something better.
While I don't question the random nature of bad luck, it might surprise you that I do question the value of hope, at least for the poker player. Hope of course is mostly a good thing, a kind of antidote to life's slings and arrows. It's what gives us the strength to carry on when otherwise we might very well be tempted to give up. When Pandora opened her famous box and let loose upon the world all of mankind's terrible ills, hope was the last thing to escape. At the time this was thought to be a gift, a final saving grace, but then poker hadn't been invented yet.
Think about it. Hope engages the emotions, raises the spirits, elevates the expectations, all of which for the luck starved card player can only serve to render the next loss (and you know it's coming), that much more painful. While mired in a losing streak of any substantial proportion, much better in my opinion to deaden yourself to both hope and disappointment alike. Play your best game, and remain as neutral to the outcome as is humanly possible. This is far from an easy thing to do, but at a certain point it becomes necessary if you're to both maintain what's left of your sanity and continue to play decent poker.
Since there's nothing quite as hellish as a protracted losing streak, you might even want to remember the words Dante tells are inscribed over the gates of hell.
Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
It might seem extreme, but trust me, you'll be far better off. I know. I've been there. Play long enough, and so will you. You can just about count on it.
- Poker Article written by Al Neipris
The above poker prop article was posted on October 2nd, 2006. If you have questions about Mad Poker Props or poker propping please contact us.